ONE WEEK LATER

“TV rots your brain,” Wendy called out as she jumped over the back of the gray microfiber sofa and ripped the DVR remote control from John’s hands.

“Too late,” he muttered, tapping his head. “It’s all mush.” Wendy held the remote way up in the air and quickly changed the channel to a teen drama with vampires. John made a gagging sound, and she grinned before clicking again. A crime investigator show. “Here!” she chimed.

John shook his head. “No way. Why do you torture yourself? This stuff gives you nightmares.” Although he was younger, John was taller and had a longer reach and could have reclaimed the remote at any time.

Wendy scrolled through the channels. She finally stopped on the cartoon channel. A rainbow of colors and happy, sappy animals danced across the screen.

“Now, here’s a show that will give you nightmares.”

John grabbed the throw pillow and shoved it into Wendy’s smirking face.

“Hey—mmmph!” She pulled the pillow down. “If you want to change the channel, that’s fine.” She got up and tossed the remote across the room to land on her mom’s overstuffed chair. “You want it. Go get it.”

“Noo!” he groaned.

Wendy grinned. She just doomed him to watch cartoons, because reaching the remote would mean getting up and walking across the room, and John was not motivated enough to do that.

John sighed and buried himself lower into the couch, getting even more comfortable. “I’m not moving,” he said firmly.

“Fine,” Wendy taunted. “Die here with the happy, sappy animals singing your funeral dirge.

Wendy walked over to the heavily draped window and threw it open. Light poured in and fell across his eyes. John hissed at her. Wendy threw her head back and laughed. “I can change it back to the vampire show.”

“DON’T you dare!”

“R.I.P. John Owens. He died from sunlight and dumb cartoons.”

“Put it on my tombstone,” he said smartly.

“Hey, do you have any plans for tomorrow. We can go to the mall?”

“Do we have too?” John mumbled. “Anything but the mall.”

“What about the movies?”

He paused for a second. “Okay, how about Death Escort 2?”

Wendy’s brow arched, but he gave her the biggest wide-eyed look of innocence. She sighed and gave in. “I guess…but don’t tell Mom.”

“Not that new horror one,” Mary called from the kitchen.

“Geez, that woman’s got ears like a bat,” John complained.

“I heard that!” Their mom came into the living room, hands on her hips. Mary’s honey-brown hair was pulled back away from her face, her lips pressed firmly together. Her friendly eyes were staring them down, making them squirm.

“Yes, and those bat-ears are dialed up to ten right now,” Wendy whispered.

John left, shooting Wendy an apologetic look. He mouthed the words “like a bat” again.

She started to giggle but held it in.

“Wendy, you’ve been through a lot, and you know our stance on scary movies.”

“But I like scary movies,” Wendy added. “And we don’t know if they really have anything to do with my nightmares.”

Her mom sighed and joined her on the couch. “That’s really not the issue, dear. Though we have talked with John about it, and we mean it when we say no. But listen. I refilled your prescription and noticed you haven’t been taking it for a while. You don’t want to relapse and have to go back to that clinic do you?”

“I don’t like the way the medicine makes me feel.” She shrugged. “When I’m on it, I see puffy clouds and rainbow kittens.”

“Well, isn’t that nice?” her mother asked.

“Yeah, kittens that shoot laser beams out of their eyes and destroy earth as we know it.”

“You do have quite the imagination.” She gave Wendy a stern gaze. “But you still need to take your meds.”

“No, I don’t.” Wendy tried to stare her down. Which was dumb. Anyone knows staring into the eyes of a predatory animal is really, really dumb.

Mary’s eyes lit up in challenge, and Wendy could see that she was enjoying this. “Wendy, you are still our daughter, and you live under our roof, which means you obey our rules. You’ve missed out on a lot in life, and we care deeply for you—you’re growing up so fast.”

“I can be childish…see?” Wendy made a goofy face and swung one of the readily available throw pillows at her mother. It brushed the side of her head, making her red curls fly up in a comical way.

“Wendy!” Her mother shrieked.

The laughter died on Wendy’s lips at her furious tone.

Mary stood and towered over her.

She was about to apologize, but her mom held up a finger to silence her. Wendy swallowed.

“That, young lady, was not nice,” she chastised, just before swinging the pillow she’d expertly tucked behind her back at Wendy’s face.

Wendy squealed as it whacked her on the side of the head.

“Next time, improve your aim,” her mom said. The onslaught became a full-fledged war.

Wendy fell from her chair and grabbed the nearest pillow. They fired the pillows back and forth.

“Hey, what’s going on?” her father yelled before entering the living room. Wendy and her mom both tossed their pillows and knocked him in the face.

They laughed at his shocked expression and waited for his response.

“Oh, I see how it is. Carry on.” He slowly backed out of the room the way he came, his hands clasped behind him as he tried to keep a straight face.

Wendy and her mom collapsed on the floor in a fit of giggles amongst all of the pillows. There were probably fifteen pillows, and they had knocked over the lamp and a few picture frames, but nothing was really damaged.

“You know you really do have way too many of these.” Wendy held up a small blue pillow with cute buttons sewn on the front.

“Oh, I know. I hate them,” her mom answered. She positioned one of the pillows under her head and gazed up at the ceiling as they settled in to talk.

“Then why don’t you get rid of a few—like this ugly one?” Wendy lifted a weird tan pillow with a cross-stitched peacock on it.

Her mom groaned and took the pillow from her. “I can’t, because your father hates throw pillows on couches. He said that one was actually the ugliest pillow he’d ever seen. We’d just gotten in an argument a few minutes before, and I decided—then and there—that I must own said pillow as a way to stick it to him.”

Wendy looked around at all of the horrid pillows in their living room, and it dawned on her. “So every pillow represents an argument between you and dad?”

“Yep,” she giggled. “The bigger the argument, the uglier the pillow I buy. When he wants to find a place on the couch, he has to pile the pillows up or move them to the floor. It’s my silent retribution…and I love every minute of it.”

Wendy snorted. “I didn’t know. It’s kind of genius.”

“Of course it is, because I’m your mother.”

“I heard that,” George crowed. They glanced up from where they lay sprawled across the floor. Her dad stood over them with a fully loaded Nerf gun. “Revenge is sweet, ladies!” he taunted.

He fired on his wife. She squealed, and the pillow fight began again. John came down the stairs to investigate. Dad pulled another Nerf gun from his back and tossed it to John. “Let’s even the odds, shall we, son?”

John grinned, pumped the Nerf gun, and took aim. Wendy looked up just in time for the foam bullet to nail her in the eye.